


Those Who Live Waiting

by the_rck



Series: Vialle, Daughter of Oberon [2]
Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Genre: Captivity, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Good Intentions, Intrigue, Siblings, Suicide Attempt, almost fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 09:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12981153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Random must have had some sort of plan when he attacked Eric. Apparently, it wasn't one he'd really thought through.





	Those Who Live Waiting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Filigranka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filigranka/gifts).



> Assumes certain things from The Wisdom That You Brought to be true but also isn't completely consistent with details there. The main thing is that Vialle is one of Oberon's children who Oberon doesn't know about, so background sibling incest pairing. Without that fact, this story won't make any sense at all.
> 
> Also assumes that Oberon is kind of a monster, but I think that's canon.
> 
> Title from a poem in Rupi Kaur's collection, Milk and Honey.
> 
> Written for a prompt left by Filigranka for Captive Audience 2017. I think this one might have both Stockholm and Lima syndromes.
> 
> Unbetaed.

Random had been fairly sure that, if he got killed while attacking Eric, it would be completely accidental. It wasn’t something that had occurred to him before he left Rebma, but he’d realized it before Eric turned to face his attack. Eric hadn’t killed Corwin, after all, and that would actually have benefited him. Killing Random would give Eric nothing but a corpse.

Which made the whole thing a waste of Random’s time. Vialle would still be bound to him, whether she wished to be or not, would still eventually come under family scrutiny in ways that might be lethal, and she and Llewella were going to be so far beyond pissed at him that he couldn’t even imagine what it meant.

Random let the pain from his wounds distract him from Gerard’s lecture on his stupidity while Gerard treated him. After Gerard had talked for almost ten minutes, Random forced himself to think and asked, “What now?”

Gerard went silent. He tied off a bandage then studied Random’s face. “A cell, most likely. After you’ve healed enough.” He hesitated. “Were you expecting something else?”

Random looked away.

“Ah.”

The understanding in that syllable made Random wish that Gerard would leave.

Instead, Gerard poured Random a glass of water infused with ginger. “I’m sure you’d rather have wine-- or something harder-- but I can’t recommend that right now.” He sat on the edge of the bed where Random lay. “Do we need to watch you for that?” The question was gentle enough that it almost didn’t hurt.

Random closed his eyes and shook his head minutely. “That would shame her.” He wasn’t sure why he was being that honest with Gerard. “Everyone would say I did it to get away.” He forced his eyes open. “None of us have to go that far for _that_ , but if I went into Shadow, she’d still be married, and she deserves better than me.”

Gerard looked startled. He didn’t say anything for a while. “Is Queen Moire’s child yours?”

Random hesitated. Under the circumstances, Aine, so tiny and still so helpless, might be a threat to Eric. If Vialle and Llewella were correct about who her father was, and he saw no reason they wouldn’t be or that they’d have lied to him. He swallowed hard and tried to look shamed. “Possibly.”

If Gerard believed it, he’d convince the others, and the girl who might be-- probably was-- Corwin’s would be safe. The baby Random had held and tickled and talked nonsense to could stay with her mother without risk of war.

“Martin’s a good boy. Well, good man, now,” Gerard said as if that meant something. “Nothing like any of us.”

 _Oh._ Random felt that like a physical blow. “I haven’t met him,” he admitted.

“I know. You should drink. You lost blood, so you need fluids.”

Random drank.

“Are there others in Rebma?” Gerard’s question almost sounded casual, but Random knew it wasn’t.

He hesitated, trying to decide whether it would protect Vialle if he claimed to have had sex with every woman in Moire’s court, but he couldn’t support that lie. Too many people knew he hadn’t. “Everyone respected my marriage,” he said. _Including me._ “Aine… was conceived before.” Moire had spent nearly an hour talking to him privately before the wedding. It had mostly been threats, but it could have been something else.

“Eric won’t go to war with Rebma over insult to you.”

Random started to laugh which was a mistake. He choked on the ginger infused water, coughed, and then realized that both laughing and coughing hurt like hell. When he managed to recover, he said, “I just assumed he’d send Moire a fruit basket and Vialle a wreath if I died down there.”

Gerard snorted a laugh. “A stiffly worded note and a fruit basket. Condolences and a stipend for your wife. You wouldn’t merit a wreath.”

Random thought that was about right for how Eric felt about him.

“You won’t be going back to Rebma any time soon.” Gerard didn’t sound as if he thought Random wanted to.

Random tried not to remember the rooms he’d shared with Vialle or the way she’d laughed at his jokes. She had actually liked-- loved-- him. He also hoped rather desperately that she wasn’t pregnant. It seemed unlikely, but he thought that claiming two children was all he could get away with given that none of his brothers had any. His luck had never been good enough to carry that large a lie.

He hadn’t really wanted to die. He’d just thought it was the one way to keep Vialle from trying to rescue Corwin. He wanted her safe more than he wanted to live, but that hadn’t meant that he wanted to die. He couldn't explain that to Gerard without revealing too many other things.

“You don’t have the same sort of support that Corwin does and much less… history… with Eric.”

Random supposed that ‘history’ was one way to put it. “I’m also the youngest. I don’t see fighting my way through all the rest of you in order to chain myself to the throne.”

Gerard nodded. “Youngest acknowledged. I know of at least two younger, and one of them is going to be a much bigger pain in the ass, long term, than you could ever hope to be.” He studied Random’s face for a moment then busied himself putting away the unused bandages. “Eric… might take your parole. Not as far as Rebma but possibly for the castle itself.”

Random bit his tongue on an urge to say that Eric might also go and fuck himself. In Rebma, being a Prince of Amber had been a shield. Now… He sighed. “I--”

“No. Decide later.” Gerard stood. “Someone will check on you every hour. The bellpull will summon help if you need it.” He got almost to the door before he turned back and said, “Caine’s supervising your guards personally.”

Random nodded to show that he’d understood the warning.

 

The only part that surprised Random about waking with Eric sitting across the room, a shielded lantern next to him, was that Eric had gotten into the room without rousing him. He didn’t like to think he was that badly hurt or that he’d lost that much of his edge.

There wasn’t enough light for Random to judge Eric’s expression, but he fixed his eyes on his older brother’s face anyway and waited. After what Random judged to be about ten minutes, Eric spoke. “Make me understand.”

“I doubt I can.” Random wanted to shrug, but he knew it would hurt, and he wasn’t sure Eric would see it anyway. He sighed. “I liked the man I met at Flora’s.”

Eric shifted in his chair. 

Random heard it more than saw it. For a moment, Vialle’s absence squeezed his throat shut.

“If I knew how to make him forget again, if I had a place to send him where the others wouldn’t find him, I would.” Eric sounded serious, sincere. “The people who might know how are the ones I want to hide him from.”

For a moment, Random let himself dream about living in a distant Shadow with Vialle and Corwin and just forgetting about Amber altogether. “It was an accident, then.” He tried to keep disappointment from his voice and was pretty sure he failed.

“As far as I could figure out, it was… an unfortunate conjunction of plague with some sort of physical and magical injury. He was probably drunk, too.” 

The twist of bitterness in the last sentence sounded more like the Eric Random remembered than anything else so far had. _But I never knew him well._ He cleared his throat. “I suppose I should congratulate you.”

Eric laughed. “You already did. Right before you attacked.” He didn’t say anything else for a while. “Why didn’t you stay in Rebma?”

 _He doesn’t actually want to know._ Random considered his words carefully. “Moire would go to war for her daughter or her sister, but she wouldn’t for anyone else.” He coughed. It wasn’t entirely fake.

“I wouldn’t have.” There was a heaviness in the words that seemed more sadness than indignation.

Random turned his head away. “There’s not much precedent.”

“No,” Eric admitted. “Which seems… beyond unlikely. Florimel assures me that none of our sisters have children, so it’s not just that we’re all failing to pay attention. Except you.”

Random wasn’t going to comment on the likelihood that Flora knew all of her sisters’ secrets. “Perhaps it’s Rebma.” He didn’t believe it, but he needed to say something to avoid Eric looking too closely at the likelihood that Random had two children when all his siblings had none. He shifted a little in bed and suppressed a sound of pain as he pulled something that would have been better left still.

“Perhaps.”

Random really wanted Eric to go away. “If I pull this damned cord, can I get someone to help me go and piss?”

“Not going to ask me?” Eric didn’t actually sound surprised.

Secure in the knowledge that Eric couldn’t see his face well enough to read it, Random let his reaction to that show on his face. “I wouldn’t expect it of any of my brothers. Or my sisters,” he added after a moment’s reflection. “We’re none of us nurturing.”

Eric stood and picked up his lantern. “I might, you know. This time, though, I’ll send someone in.”

 

“Your wife wants to join you.”

Random hadn’t seen Eric since that night time visit while he’d been healing. _And I didn’t really see him then._ This time, he stared at his brother as the words registered. For a moment, Random couldn’t speak. He didn’t need to look around to know that his cell was no fit quarters for Vialle. He knew every millimeter.

Random swallowed hard and opened his mouth.

“I’m inclined to grant her request.” Eric looked around the room. “It’s not as bad as I’d imagined.”

“It’s not as if I can replace it with something better if I destroy it.” Keeping his hands still and his face neutral was one of the hardest things Random had done in a long time. “Gerard has the guards supervise while I clean.” _So that I don’t try to poison myself._ If Gerard hadn’t told Eric that part, Random wasn’t going to.

Eric fixed his eyes on Random in an expression that reminded Random uncomfortably of their father. “I’m a little surprised you’re not climbing the walls.”

Random returned the stare. _You don’t know me._ He was sure that Flora wasn’t surprised. _Gerard might be, but she wouldn’t be._ He took a deep breath. “Surely, there’s somewhere else my wife could stay.” He couldn’t make it a question. He’d meant to, but he couldn’t.

Vialle trapped by these walls was horror beyond bearing, but Random really didn’t want Eric to know that it mattered to him.

Eric didn’t say anything, and Random was certain he knew, that Gerard had told him why Random had returned to Amber.

“She’s no danger to anyone,” Random said softly. “She’s blind. She has the little magics of Rebma. No threat to Amber.” Apart from the first sentence, it was all true, just beyond incomplete.

Eric nodded. “She will have my protection.”

Random couldn’t quite control the flinch at the reminder that he no longer had the power to protect his wife. _If I ever did._ “She’s Llewella’s foster-daughter.” He offered it as if it didn’t matter, but he really hoped that Eric would understand the weight of it and treat Vialle better for it.

He shouldn’t have said it. He knew it as soon as the words were out. None of his siblings were stupid.

Eric hesitated before speaking.

_As if he didn’t want to ask any more than I did that first meeting._

“Our niece?” Eric asked at last when the silence had stretched to uncomfortable length.

Random closed his eyes for a moment and tried to find a way out of confirming Eric’s suspicions. He sighed as he realized that even remaining silent would be taken as answer.

“She and Llewella say not. The court says that her mother died in childbirth. Some indeterminate time ago.” Random wasn’t going to tell Eric what he’d guessed, not as fact. He hadn’t let Vialle confirm it, but living in close quarters with her had made him certain. “She’s older than Martin.” He hadn’t meant to add those words, but he really couldn’t bear anyone to think he’d have done that. Many other things but not that. “Moire thought they might be lovers, she and Llewella, I mean, not her and Martin.” 

Random wouldn’t have done that, either. His son had grown up without him, but he wouldn’t have been that much of an asshole to the kid. Or to Vialle.

Eric looked as stunned as Random had been when he first guessed. He shook out his shoulders. “She will have my protection,” he repeated. His face set in grim lines, and Random wondered which dead sibling he was remembering.

“I didn’t mean to tell you.” Random thought that Eric already knew that much.

“You don’t know any of us well enough for that.”

A little of the tension left Random’s shoulders. “She’s… beyond dear to me as much as to Llewella.” Unspoken in that was the promise that if Eric were lying, unless he killed Random, Random would leave the cell some day and find a way to put several knives into his older brother. Random closed his eyes. “I keep thinking he’ll come back…”

No need to specify who ‘he’ was.

“She’s not actually harmless, is she?”

“She’s _blind_.” Random really hoped that Eric would accept that as proof of incapacity. It wasn’t, but that people assumed it was one of Vialle’s first and fundamental tools.

Eric sighed. “She upstairs already. I hadn’t intended to tell you, but she--”

Random couldn’t help laughing. He could picture it clearly. When he managed to stop laughing, he said, “And you never saw it coming.”

Eric laughed. “I told her you weren’t worth it.”

“I’m not.” Random shrugged, denying responsibility. Then he sighed. “Please take care of her. I… have nothing to offer but this--” He indicated the room with a slight movement of his chin. “--and even with more, I wouldn’t be worth it.” Knowing she thought he was, though, warmed something inside him. Then he thought of something else. “Llewella is going to _gut_ me with the dullest knife she can find.”

This time, Eric kept laughing for several seconds. When he stopped, he said, “I think I can prevent that, at least.”

Random raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

Eric studied him for a moment. “Damned if I know.” Then he shook his head. “The family’s too small, and you’re the only one proven fertile.”

Random almost choked, and not letting that show was beyond difficult. After a moment, he managed words. “I assumed it was Rebma or, more likely, Moire’s line. She has power, not Pattern but still power.” He really hoped Eric would accept that as an alternative answer. There had been points in his life when being put to stud might have sounded appealing, but at this moment, he found the idea horrifying. He bit his lip then realized he had and shrugged. “Whatever Dad had children for, he wasn’t looking for grandchildren. I don’t think he was even looking for heirs.”

Eric turned his back on Random. “That part hadn’t escaped me.” He hesitated for a moment. “I’m almost certain,” he said, “that none of the others see that.”

The second sentence was so quiet that Random almost couldn’t hear it. “I think…” he said. “No, I’m certain. Llewella does. She probably always has. She’s simply not minded to give anything to Dad’s game by trying to save the rest of us from it.” That Llewella was the only one fortunate enough to have a choice, Random left unsaid.

“Ah.” Eric still didn’t turn to look at Random. “An odd trio we make.”

Random wasn’t young enough to miss the offer. If their father was alive, Eric was talking treason. If he was dead, the entire thing was irrelevant. 

Random didn’t think the old man was dead, so he considered it carefully, turning it over in his head. “Quartet,” he said at last. “There’s another piece on the board.” He tried not to be annoyed that Eric had included Llewella who hadn’t agreed yet while omitting Vialle.

Eric turned back at Random’s words. He smiled. “I can work with that.”

Random nodded. “Vialle will find life on land challenging.” He wondered if Eric would offer anything beyond protection for Vialle.

Eric’s eyes narrowed. “She will need you to teach her.”

“Will you accept my parole?”

“She will certainly be less trouble if you supervise her.” 

It wasn't quite a yes. Random glanced around his cell. The place hadn't been as bad as he expected, either, but maybe he'd be somewhere else soon. Maybe he'd be able to talk to Vialle.

Maybe she and Llewella would have more luck getting a knife into the old man's back than anyone else had.

Random offered a silent apology to Corwin. “I still like the man I met at Flora's better than I like you.” He didn't plan to ask for anything for Corwin, but he wanted to say that much.

“Carl Corey was a good friend to you.” Eric looked as if he was trying to find words. “Restoring his memory stole as much as it gave back.” He grimaced. “That's not who he is right now. I don't know if there's precedent, if that person might be capable of return.”

Random couldn't find anything to say.

“I will give you and your wife a stipend. If a portion goes for… charity, I won't question it. As long as you don't talk to him.”

Random nodded. “You've changed, too.”

Eric knocked on the cell door to summon the guard to let him out. “Not quite as much as you have.”


End file.
